A St Helens hip hop crew has launched an exciting and eye-catching new graffiti project.

A wall of colour has appeared on St Helens town centre’s MD Creative Building in an effort to brighten up the area.

The idea behind it is to give young people a chance to explore local issues together, agree on common problems that affect the region and use hip hop arts as a tool to benefit the community.

The UC Crew, which took on the project alongside MD Creatives, is an award-winning youth organisation in St Helens specialising in encouraging the youths to become active citizens using break dancing, graffiti and DJing as a platform for change

More than 20 people aged between 10 and 17 helped to design the mural.

Tom Glynn, Chairperson and Project Leader for the crew, was involved in creating the art. He told JMU Journalism: “We found out in 2018 that one of the barriers to young people that want to engage in social action projects are their role models.

“This can be either family members or friends, as they don’t see the benefits or feel like their actions wouldn’t.”

The positive words on the wall are reminders of thoughts, actions and activities to boost young people’s wellbeing, mental health and self-esteem.

YouTube:Tom Glynn

The group has delivered a number of hip hop social action projects in order to enable young people to benefit the area in ways that are fun, meaningful and creative.

Their main aim is to engage with the youth who would not consider volunteering or were not aware that they could change their community.

Mr Glynn told JMU Journalism: “We think that giving young people a platform to voice their opinions, discuss their community and provide a tool for change has been rewarding for all and boosts self-belief in that young people can make a difference.”

The UC Crew hopes to host more creative projects around St Helens in the future in an effort to show that adolescents are willing to give back in positive ways.